Jefferies hires senior bankers who have been out of the market for two years

Jefferies has hired two former managing directors from Royal Bank of Scotland and Unicredit, both of whom have been out of the market for over two years.

Dominic Squire, a trader focused on the industrials sector, was a managing director at RBS until April 2012 when he left for a job in tourism. For the past two years, he’s been based in Devon, UK running Plymouth Boat Tours, a firm that organises sea-fishing and speedboat trips in the south west.

Last month, however, he returned to financial services as a senior vice president in Jefferies’ trading team. SVP at Jefferies is a senior post, equivalent to a more junior MD at other banks.

Meanwhile, Mark Cathcart, a former managing director at both Deutsche Bank and Unicredit, who left the firm in February 2012, has also just signed up to Jefferies in its equity research function. This is his first role in over two years, according to the Financial Conduct Authority register.

Investment banks are increasingly turning to financial services professionals who have been out of the market since 2008, but this is largely for areas where they’ve been struggling to recruit. It’s a positive sign that front office employees taking time out of the industry have been able to return.

Jefferies has continued to expand, while its larger rivals have scaled back. Steve Dalton, director and head of European emerging markets at Knight Equity Markets, also joined the bank as SVP within its sales and trading team focusing on Russia in April, along with Julian Rimmer from CF Global Trading.

It has also been bolstering its equities team in the U.S. this year with the recruitment of Matt Foulds, formerly head of America equity distribution at UBS, Bill Bell, who was previously head of electronic distribution at Barclays, and Frank Copplestone, who joined from Morgan Stanley as head of structure products.

Squire has a degree from INSEAD, while Cathcart has a Masters in Classical and Ancient Studies from the University of Cambridge.